I’ll be first to admit that juicing may not be for everyone. No, I’m not referring to the use of steroids, you fool. I’m talking about taking whole vegetables and fruits and throwing them in a machine that grinds them up, leaving you with the pulp at one end and just the juice at the other. Deb and I started juicing about seven or eight years ago, and we’d sort of just stopped or forgot about it for the past three. We decided to pick the habit back up again for several reasons. For one, that caffeine-free jolt of energy we used to get from juicing was gone, and we wanted that back again. More importantly, though, was that I noticed that when I was juicing years ago, I never got a cold. I mean never. Then, in the past few years, I just kept getting damned colds all fall and winter long, and I was sick of it. “Gee, I used to never get sick years ago. What happened?” I thought. “Oh yeah, I used to juice and now I don’t.” Time to break out the Juiceman again.

For years Deb and I have used what I thought to be one hell of a great juicer, the Juiceman. And it was great, for the many years we used it. Then, as we started once again to use it daily this year, it pretty much died on me. I threw one too many carrots in the thing, and the whole thing kicked like a wild bronco, threw the juice and pulp container everywhere — even to the ceiling — and smelled a bit like something inside was burning. Not good. It was obvious the little champ had outlived its lifespan and it was time to kick things up a notch.

After a little research — mostly based on reviews on Amazon.com product pages — I decided to give the highly-rated and reasonably-priced Breville juicer a go. Initially I was looking into the possibility of getting a masticating juicer rather than a centrifugal juicer like the Juiceman. This was because I really like to throw a lot of dark, leafy greens into the machine, and a masticating juicer reportedly works better with that sort of thing. Rather than using a fast-spinning grater to tear the leaves apart for juice, leaving perhaps too much waste in the end, a masticating machine takes out a whole lot more juice out of even barley grass that you put into it. The biggest drawback, though, is that you have to cut up your material so small that it’s quite a pain to use regularly. If you want to throw full carrots and apples into a machine in one go, you need a centrifugal machine.

The first thing I’ll say about the Breville is it’s a work of art. As soon as I took it out of its box, I could tell this baby was going to last us a lifetime. It feels solidly built and couldn’t be simpler to assemble. In fact, it has one fewer piece than the Juiceman, and there are really no areas at all where unseen juice might seep into or hide from even a vigorous dishwasher. The grating basket even has one additional feature my Juiceman didn’t have, with dual blades at the center to give your veggies a good initial dicing before letting the graters do their job.

After a thorough washing of all the parts, I couldn’t wait to give this thing a try. Turning it on for the first time was sweet music. The 700W motor kicked in and was practically singing a song of “FEED ME,” begging for me to toss in even the heaviest vegetables and fruits. Unlike the Juiceman, the feeding tube on the Breville is huge. Seriously, you can fit a whole apple into the tube without needing to cut it, and, of course, I did. The machine barely made a wimper as it annihilated the entire apple in about a second, and the provided juice container quickly showed the glorious results. The Breville would have laughed at me if it could, as I tossed in carrot after carrot that disappeared into orange fibers and liquid as quickly as if I’d have fed it to a famished horse. Whereas the entire juice would have taken me five minutes to complete with the Juiceman, the Breville completed the task on one.

The dream didn’t end there. Cleanup couldn’t be easier. As I said, there are very few if any crevices in the pieces of the machine, so you can practically rinse the pieces out without much scrubbing if any at all. The metal basket certainly needs cleaning, and there’s even a provided brush to make that task all the easier and safer for you. Everything is kept so separate from the main base unit that it’s kept squeaky clean after every use, nary a drop ever having touched it. Also, of course, all of the pieces — save the motor unit — are dishwasher safe.

Now, some who herald the benefits of a masticating juicer may have a point in that it makes far less waste than a centrifugal unit, though, admittedly, I have no experience with one to know for certain. However, if you’re one to composte your veggie and fruit discards all the time as we do, it’s pretty difficult to feel at all guilty about any sort of waste going on. That stuff is going to make composte that your gardens and plants will love, which gets you better plants that take less to take care of from commercial products. It’s all a win-win.

Alright, so not such a “quick” review, but I think you see now that I’m giving the Breville Juice Fountain high praise here and give it the CliqueClack seal of approval. Let us know if you want us to highlight more of the benefits we’ve seen from juicing here on CliqueClack Food, and we’ll make a point of it!

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIuhThWzlkk

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I wrote about my initial experience with the SousVide Supreme cooker last month, and I promised I’d follow up with some specific meals we tried in it. Before I continue on, make sure you read that original post if you’re not familiar with the SousVide Supreme (SVS) or cooking Sous Vide in general.

I love lamb, and I especially love lamb when it’s cooked to perfection. Beef has a good range of done-ness that will still make me love it all the same, but lamb … it has to have that perfect, medium-rare temperature for it to really stand out. Being that the SousVide is made for cooking to that perfect temperature, throwing a leg of lamb in that baby was the first thing that came to mind.

Let me again explain the first problem I had with the SVS, besides the initial problem of getting a faulty review unit. The small guide/recipe book that comes with the unit has contradictory and confusing information regarding cooking times. For someone unfamiliar with this cooking method, it can be quite intimidating to see a recipe call for a maximum cook time of 48 hours and a minimum cook time of 24 hours. No, really — apparently you can safely throw a whole leg of lamb in here and cook it for two whole days and not worry about it coming out wrong (not sure I agree, but I’ll come to that later).

In addition to the overwhelming time & temperature chart, the recipes within the book often contradict what the chart specifies — it’s frustrating! Think you can do a simple Google/Bing/Bang/Bong search to find the right cooking times? Not so fast! There’s no definitive guide to be found. Want to call the SVS people to get help? Nope — you’re on your own.

Alright, so getting back to the leg of lamb. We decided that cooking this for two days seemed creepy, so we opted to start cooking it late the night before, around 10 PM or so. We put the kinds of spices we wanted on the meat (salt, pepper, garlic, thyme, rosemary), sealed it in the bag and immersed it in the SVS bath, which was already set to the proper temperature for medium-rare (as defined by the guide book, at least).

Let me share a handy tip for you when trying to get a spiced piece of meat into one of these bags, without getting spices all over the bag seal. Take the bag and fold over the ends so the zipper seal is folder underneath, then put the meat in the bag and seal it up. Makes for a much cleaner seal.

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I have recently purchased the Breadman TR520 Bread Maker. This is one of the more inexpensive bread makers available on the market today and it is a simple unit to use.

The TR520 has eight automatic settings that make it very simple to program for whatever bread you are making. These settings are for basic white bread, fast bake, French bread, whole wheat bread, sweet, quick bread, dough, and bake-only. The TR520 will make three different size loafs of bread: 1, 1 ½, and 2 pound loaves, and has three crust color settings: light, medium, and dark.

The 64 page manual that comes with the TR520 is full of helpful tips to make your bread making easy and a success, along with many good recipes for making many different types of bread. All of the functions are well explained in the manual, which includes a chart that shows the bake time for all the different types of bread, loaves, and crust color settings.

One of the features that I was really interested in when I bought the TR520 was the fast bake setting. Most loaves of bread take three to four hours to bake, but with the fast bake setting you have a two pound loaf of bread in one hour. When you select the fast bake setting, you do not have all of the other options to choose from. You can make a two pound loaf of basic white bread with a medium crust and that is all. If you want anything else you will have to wait the three to four hours for the loaf of bread.

The basic bread setting is for your basic white bread recipes and for most of the prepackaged bread mixes. The French bread setting is for recipes that are low in fat and sugar, which gives you a loaf with a crisp crust and chewy interior. The whole wheat setting is for recipes that are more than 50% whole wheat. The sweet bread setting is for recipes that are high in fat, sugar, eggs, or cheese. The quick bread setting is for recipes that use baking powder or baking soda instead of yeast to make the bread or cake rise. The dough setting is for making dough to use in other things. This is great for making homemade pizza crusts, or really good pretzels. The bake-only setting is for baking breads or cakes for longer periods. This setting can be set in ten minute increments.

The recipes in the manual are very well written, with a list of ingredients that includes measurements for 1, 1 ½, and 2 pound loaves as well as for active dry yeast, quick rise yeast, and bread machine yeast. The ingredient list is followed by very thorough step-by-step instructions for adding the ingredients, setting the programs and starting the baking process.

The recipes range from simple white bread, one of my favorites, to a honey wheat bread, rye bread, and cinnamon-raisin bread. The quick bread section has banana nut, cranberry nut, corn, zucchini, and apple walnut bread recipes, all of which sound pretty good. The dough section includes bagel, dinner rolls, whole wheat pizza crust, regular pizza crust, almond cherry coffee cake, soft pretzel, and cinnamon roll dough recipes.

So far I have made about eight loaves of bread in the TR520 and have really been pleased with each loaf. I have made a couple of fast bake loaves, a couple of French bread loaves, and the rest have been basic white bread loaves. All have been very good and much better than most of the bread available in the average grocery store. The only complaint I have with the Breadman TR520 is the yellow sticker with white writing on the control panel, which is a bit hard to read, so until you get familiar with the setting,s it is a little hard to see what you are setting the machine to do.

So, I know what you are thinking. “Enough with the sales pitch already. this is a food blog”. Show us the food, man. I will, but you will have to wait for my next post. I have a comparison of a couple of loaves I am working on for next time.

Welcome to December. Only 20 more shopping days until Christmas. It’s coming fast and the retailers are all putting up many good sale prices on lots of cool gifts. So here are three more great gift ideas for the cook in your life.

In my post for gift ideas for dads on Father’s Day, I told you about the Lodge Cast Iron Cookware. Cast iron skillets and Dutch ovens are always on the top of my Christmas list, and just like you cannot have too much beer, guns, knives, tools, and fun, you can never have too much cast iron cookware.

Next are the KitchenAid Professional 600 Series 6-Quart Stand Mixers. This mixer is great for all of your mixing needs. This is a 250 watt 10 speed 4 1/2 quart mixer with a flat mixer blade, wire whip, and a dough hook. The mixing bowl will hold enough dough for 2 loaves of bread and the motor and drive system of this mixer is more than sturdy enough to handle mixing anything you want to mix in it, from cake batter to the thickest cookie dough. I have blown up several lesser mixers trying to mix cookie dough, but the KitchenAid will handle it all. The flat mixing blade is made out of heavy duty aluminum and is made to last a life time. The wire whisk is perfect for whipping up cream or the best merengue for that lemon merengue pie every body loves. The dough hook will knead dough all day long and keep coming back for more. The bowl locks into the stand so it can’t move and there is even a lock to keep the mixer from coming up out of the bowl when mixing up that stiff cookie dough. The KitchenAid stand mixer also has several attachments that snap onto the front of the mixer to give even more functionality. You can add a meat grinder, food processor or even a sausage stuffer. All of this makes this one appliance that will get used a lot in your kitchen.

Not too long ago, Jen wrote a great post on how to make bread dough from scratch. This is the best way to make really good bread. The flavor and texture is so much better than most of the commercial breads sold in the stores, and you know exactly what is in the bread. I remember as a youngster my mom putting bread dough on the hearth to rise. The smell of the dough would quickly fill the house. Bread is simple to make, but making it from scratch is time consuming. There is not a lot of work to do, but the time it takes waiting for the dough to rise means it will take the better part of a day. For those like me that do not have all day to spend making bread, there is the bread machine. I have had a bread machine for several years and it makes it so easy to make bread. Just add the ingredients to the pan, put the pan in the machine and set the program for the type of bread you are making and how dark you want the crust to be. Start the machine and in 3 to 4 hours you will have a fresh loaf of bread, ready to eat. All of the bread machines on the market come with a recipe book with a wide variety of bread recipes that are sure to please everyone. Most of them also have a dough setting that will mix, rise, and knead the dough for you. This is great for making fresh pizza dough or pretzels. And if that’s not reason enough to get a bread machine, several of the newer ones on the market today have a fast bake mode that will turn out a 2 pound loaf of bread in an hour. I just picked up a Breadman bread maker that will turn out a loaf of bread in 58 minutes. Look for a review of this bread maker here soon.

Well, as much as I hate to admit it, the Christmas season is here. I look forward to Christmas every year and yet I also dread Christmas in some ways. I am a simple man to shop for, yet every year I get things as gifts that I don’t want, can’t use, and am not willing to give up my man card for being seen with these gifts. I know this may shock some of you, but I am not a metrosexual kind of guy and do not need any fruity smelling body spray, or hair gel. If you want to get me something, then go with the Fox Urine or Skunk cover scent instead of the cologne. At least then you know I will wear it. So for all of you that may have a Redneck in the family, here are a few great gift ideas that are sure to please.

Men like knives. I have many knives for a variety of different uses and still like to get more. Knives are great tools and when used and cared for properly you will get years of use out of them. Knives range from small, single blade folding pocket knives up to large, fixed blade machetes and everywhere in between. To narrow it down, I have three sets of knives made by Kershaw Knives that will cover any situation your Redneck will encounter.

The first thing I reach for when I begin cooking, whether in the kitchen or at the camp stove is my Kershaw Deluxe Blade Trader set.

I have had my set for many years and it is still the best set of knives I own. It has a butcher blade, carving blade, saw blade, bread blade, frozen meat blade, and fillet blade, All the blades hold an edge well and are easy to switch on the handle for the next job. The blades are easy to clean, either by hand or in the dishwasher, because they can be removed from the the handle. The set comes with a handy storage pack that makes them easy to take with you. These are great if you’re having a holiday dinner at a friend’s or relative’s house — grab the Blade Trader as you head out the door. If you get stuck carving the turkey, you won’t have to worry about trying to get a good cut on a tough bird with a knife that is better suited to spreading warm butter on cold bread because it’s so dull. You can find more information about the Deluxe Blade Trader on The Kershaw web site.

Next is the Sportsman’s Blade trader. This set is a three blade set designed for most everyday outdoor use.

It has a utility blade, fillet blade, and a saw blade. This set has a handy belt sheath and is the one I have on my belt most of the time. The utility blade can be used to cut rope, fishing line, sharpen a stick to roast hot dogs over a fire, and to gut fish. The fillet blade will fillet those fish up nicely for frying over the camp fire, and the saw blade can cut plenty of small branches for the fire as well as the branches for roasting the hot dogs. You can find more information on the Sportsman’s Blade Trader on the Kershaw website.

And finally the Alaskan Blade Trader. This set is for the serious hunter.

This set also has three blades and a handy belt sheath. The three blades are the utility blade, skinning blade, and saw blade.

The utility blade can be used for any cutting task you have while out in the field. Once you have your game down, the gut hook (notch on the top of the blade) will open up the animal like it has a zipper. The Alaskan Blade Trader skinning blade has a large enough gut hook to open up the thickest elk, moose, or buffalo hide to make cleaning as easy as possible.

The saw blade can be used to trim branches to open shooting lanes from a blind as well as to cut pelvic bones during cleaning, or to cut the spine when quartering your game for the long pack out to the truck. Find out more about the Alaskan Blade Trader at the Kershaw website.

There you have it — three great gifts for the Redneck in your life. Any one of these sets will make him happy and he will use them for years to come.

All week long, over on CliqueClack TV, we’ve been highlighting the non-Friday Black Friday TV-on-DVD deals from Amazon.com. But there’s some great deals on kitchen stuff, too, including gadgets and books — how could we forget? Here are a few notable ones we thought you’d like to be made aware of. Many of these deals run up through Christmas, but you never know when the prices may roll back to their original ones, so act fast!

Books:

• How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition), Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food: 42% off
• So Easy: Luscious, Healthy Recipes for Every Meal of the Week: 56% off
• The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book: 44% off
• The Silver Spoon Pasta (Silver Spoon Book): 47% off

Gadgets and stuff:

• AeroGarden 900100-1200 AeroGarden 3 with Gourmet Herb Seed Kit: 62% off
• Pinzon Wine Pourer, Set of 2: 61% off
• Wüsthof Classic 6-Inch Cook’s Knife: 60% off
• Charcoal Companion CC4051 Portable Baseball Barbeque Grill: 52% off

There are two things going on at our house right now. One is ensuring that our 3-year-old son, who’s allergic to soy and egg, has enough to eat during and in-between meals. The other is a challenge to eat healthier as a good example for our kids. For some reason, both of those situations have converged over popcorn.

My son has come to love microwave popcorn, particularly Orville Redenbacher, which uses non-soybean based butter. My older kids love it as well. However, eating a bowl or two of the buttery stuff on a daily basis isn’t good for them. So, my wife and I decided the best course of action was to look for a corn popper. That way, the kids could enjoy the popcorn while we controlled the added salt and butter.

Fortunately, thanks to 21st Century technology, we found something that works wonders.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Presto PowerPop Microwave Popper (actually, mutli-popper, but we’ll get to that in a bit). No, it’s not a portable microwave that you may have seen on 30 Rock (and seemed like a terrific idea). This is actually a corn-popping bowl that fits into your microwave and produces fresh popcorn as good as any movie theater worker or Carny makes. And, in the case of the Carny, you don’t feel like you’ve strayed into the middle of Deliverance when your given your box of popcorn.

How does it work? Well, the company line says their “exclusive PowerBase™ and PowerCup® concentrators combine to focus microwave energy so effectively that virtually every kernel pops.” That seems a lot of “blah blah blah,” Mad Men hype. All I know is that it does pop most of the kernels and it’s simple to use. You just put that trademarked PowerBase at the bottom of the registered PowerCup, add a few tablespoons of oil, a half cup of kernels (any type), and microwave for about five minutes. In about three minutes you get a bowl full of popcorn.

Let me append that … you get an overflowing bowl full of popcorn that will cover the bottom of your microwave, your countertop, and your floor. Who knew that a half cup of corn kernels would produce that much popcorn?! Granted, my kids ate it all up, but it was interesting to see. My recommendation: if you want to have popcorn for only two I would reduce the portions of oil and kernels in half.

Now, they call this product a “multi-popper” because it can be used one of two ways: with oil and without. I know they’re folks out there who enjoy air-popped popcorn, so this product may be an advantage to you. Me? I’ve always liked some kind of oil or butter in my popcorn to give it density. By the by, if you do pop with oil you can use any type, including canola, vegetable, olive, and, apparently, motor oil.

So I say, away with you microwave popcorn bags! Good-bye to your greasiness, the bad taste it leaves in my mouth, and the odor that remains in my microwave (and kitchen) for days on end. It’s fresh, popped popcorn for my family from now on!

There’s more to food than recipes. We’ll approach the answers to growing questions, and new ways of taking on tricks of the food trade, and Boil It Down for you.

For the past couple of years, we’ve been using a bamboo cutting board as our main chopping surface in the kitchen. It made a whole lot of sense at the time. Bamboo’s a green wood and replenishes itself quickly and abundantly; we’re not contributing to the deforestation of some ancient woodlands to prepare our meals.

So far the bamboo cutting boards have served their purpose well. However, I’ve noted that our knives seem to get dull more frequently than they had years ago. Are the knives getting old? Are we just cooking more? Is the bamboo bad for the knives?

We could have gone with plastic cutting boards, but it’s been reported that bacteria finds it a lot easier to hide in crevasses in plastic than with wood boards. Sounds crazy, I know. We have one plastic board that we’ve declared as the fruit-only surface, so we’re not getting some weird onion flavor in our sliced pineapple.

First thing to know about wooden cutting boards is that there are typically two types: edge-grain and end-grain.

Edge-grain — or flat-grain — is the most common wooden cutting board you’ll see in a typical household kitchen. This is the kind of bamboo cutting board we use. It’s easy to tell it’s a flat-grain board because it looks like a bunch of flat pieces of wood, stuck together edge-to-edge. They’re relatively inexpensive, as they’re easier to manufacture.

End-grain cutting boards are what you’ll often see on a big butcher block. The wood is arranged in a checkerboard pattern rather than the edge or long end of the wood. End-grain boards are more expensive because they’re more durable, cost more to make and look damn nice on your kitchen counter.

So, why are end-grain boards better than edge-grain, besides in looks and durability? Think of how a tree’s fibers run. A long board of wood is cut to the length of the tree, not through its width. The fibers of the tree run vertically, and thus vertically within the long piece of wood. It’s much easier to take an ax and chop the length of a log of wood rather than across it, since you’re splitting down through the fibers of the tree.

In an edge-grain board, your knife is cutting down at the wood grain as though you’re trying to chop down a tree. With end-grain, you’re coming down through the wood fibers as though splitting with an ax (though, of course, without the splitting). End-grain’s easier on your knives because of this, and because you’re not actually cutting the wood and are instead splitting the fibers, the board lasts longer.

Is that the answer then, that the grain of the wood is affecting the knives’ sharpness? Not so fast! There are other things to consider. There’s the type of wood and the resin used to adhere the pieces together, for example. Teak contains silica, which can be very hard on knife edges (though it looks really nice). Some exotic woods contain oils that can come out onto your food and potentially cause allergic reactions (walnut, for example). But what of bamboo, specifically?

Bamboo is a durable and plentiful resource, though is considered by some to be a hard wood (it is, in fact, a kind of grass!) Yes, it’s going to be harder on knife edges, though it’s not the wood to blame as much as it is the way you’re cutting the grain. An edge-grain, hardwood (or grass) board is going to work out your knives faster than any end-grain board.

Basic rule of thumb: stick with end-grain boards if you can afford it. If you must go edge-grain, stick with softer woods if you don’t want your knives going dull on you quicker.

For example: Is it really so complicated to cook hot dogs that one needs a specialized rotary grill to cook them?  Deion Sanders thinks so.

If your dad doesn’t like football, or doesn’t have a kitchen the size of a football field, maybe he’d prefer a hot dog toaster. Nothing says “I love you, Pa!” like “Delicious Hot dogs In Minutes!” Toasted hot dogs? Has the world really come to this? Whatever happened to a pan on the stove? Or a grill? Or forgoing hot dogs all together for sausage, which is much tastier and probably has fewer pigs’ ears in it?

Speaking of grills, this Rocket Grill has got to be the saddest excuse for a grill I have ever seen. At least the George Foreman grill leaves grill marks. The Rocket Grill appears to be ginormous, and you’ll need to buy special parchment bags, and, okay, fine, the Amazon reviewers kind of love the thing, but that doesn’t sound like grilling to me! I don’t know about you, but I like to think about my dad grilling outside. With his big grill or smoker. And a big slab of pork ribs. Or heck, even some zucchini and portobella mushrooms. Not with a plastic thing and parchment paper in the house.

Okay, forget the cooking contraptions. Maybe something for serving food instead? How about the Snac Daddy Food Tray? I don’t know about you, but whenever I serve buffalo wings, I’m always deeply concerned about where to put the bones. A bowl by the tray of wings just never worked for me. I think I should make my guests pick up the entire tray of wings with one hand so they can discard their bones underneath the remaining wings instead. No unsightly mess! Until someone tips the whole darned tray over entirely, that is….

I could go on forever and still not catalogue even a tiny fraction of the sheer nonsense that is the specialty food gadget industry. Besides, isn’t that what Gadget Clack is for? So, take it from me, if you want to buy your Dad something totally unsuitable that he’ll never use, stick with an ugly tie. At least that won’t take up precious cabinet space!

Happy Father’s Day, Daddies of the world! Thanks for all you do!

I have mentioned in a few of my posts that I like to use cast iron cookware. I have also heard from many of my readers that they would like to use cast iron, but it is so hard to season the pans properly so they will be good for cooking. When you get a new cast iron pan, it is a lot of work to season it so that you can cook with it. All of the manufacturers include instructions on how to season the pan.

My method is really simple. I preheat the oven to 375 degrees, coat the pan with vegetable shortening and bake it in the oven for an hour. I take the pan out and let it cool. When it is cool I wipe down the surface to remove any excess shortening.  When the pan is completely cool. I will put it in a cool oven and heat it to 375 degrees again. When the pan is hot I take it out and coat it again with shortening and back it for another hour. I will repeat this process until I am happy with the amount of seasoning I have on the pan. This can take anywhere from 3 to 6 sessions depending on the pan. Now however, none of that work is needed. The Lodge Cast Iron Cookware Company does all the hard work. They sell seasoned cast iron cookware.

Lodge Cast Iron Cookware Company has a great website that has all of the products they carry listed. They have skillets, fryers, dutch ovens for both the stove and for the camp fire, grill pans, griddles, bakeware, and even a wok. All of these pans are high grade American made cast iron cookware.

The skillets are what I use the most and they have them ranging in size from 6 inches up to 17 inches. I mostly use my 12 inch skillet. I use if for making my cornbread, frying bacon, burgers, and back strap. The cast iron takes longer to heat up to cooking temperature than the aluminum coated ones and they are not as non-stick as the teflon coated ones, but you don’t have to worry about the coating of the pan coming off and contaminating your food like with the teflon coated ones either. Cast iron also heats more evenly so you can use the whole pan for cooking instead of one side or that small spot right in the middle.

The griddles are great for pancakes and fried eggs. The solid griddles will last for years. with multiple sizes and reversible griddles that have a grill side and a flat side these pans are great for all your cooking needs.

The grilling pans are great for that fresh off the BBQ look in the middle of a blizzard. it is also good for cutting the grease in meat by getting it up out of the grease.

The dutch oven is probably the most amazing pan of them all. you can fry a steak, boil eggs, make stew, bake a cake in a dutch oven. the dutch ovens come in sizes ranging from 2 quarts up to 9 quarts. The small ones are great for making a small pot of chili for dinner and the bigger one for making stew for the whole hunting party. There are books, web sites and even TV shows dedicated to dutch oven cooking and it is truly an art form; I am far from an artist when it comes to dutch ovens.

The web site also has a really good section on the use and care of their cast iron cookware.There are instructions for the use, cleaning, and re-seasoning of the cookware. there are also helpful tips to improve your cooking experience, such as, “do not cook extremely cold foods in the pan because it can cause sticking. let the food set out and warm up some before cooking.”

The best part of the web site has to be the recipe section. They have recipes for indoor and outdoor cooking that are great. The Buffalo chicken corn bread will be on my list to try soon. There are several breakfast, main course, and biscuit recipes for the indoor cooking. There are enough recipes to keep Dad busy in the kitchen for days.

The outdoor recipes are the ones that I really like. The dutch oven roast is one I have made while camping several times, and there is nothing better than dutch oven sour dough biscuits while out in the woods. Get Dad an outdoor dutch oven and a bag of charcoal briquettes and he will be out in the back yard cooking up a storm and making everyone happy with his perfect meals.

With Father’s Day just around the corner, I thought I would step up for all the dads out there and give you all some ideas of cool gifts that Dad will really like to get. I know that when he unwraps the tie, or golf socks, or the “landscapes of the world” calendar he says he loves it and is happy, but really he is thinking, “Please, just one cool toy to play with.” Wake up people — dads are just really big boys. Boys hate clothes and stuff for gifts. They want toys!

First up in my gift idea list is the Monogrammed Steak Brander. This thing is awesome. It is monogrammed so Dad can brand his initials into that perfect steak he has worked so hard to grill for you. It comes in both classic and western styles. The branding iron is 13 inches long and the head is 1 inch tall and approximately 3 inches wide.

Is Dad a big college sports fan? Get him the College steak brand for his favorite school. These irons are made of stainless steel, weigh about 3 pounds and the heads are 3 inches in diameter. They heat easily on either a gas grill or a charcoal BBQ.

There are Nascar brands, American brands, Number brands, Traditional brands, Outdoor brands.

What about getting Dad a gift set? This set includes two brands, one for Mom and one for Dad and includes wood branded steak plates.

I guarantee if you want to put a real smile on Dad’s face this year on Father’s Day, get him one of these branding irons and he will be happy.

There are literally thousands upon thousands of available iPhone/iPod Touch apps available in the Apple iTunes Store. If you’re a foodie or even just someone who eats (that’d be everyone except Gabrielle Anwar), you can find some decent apps in there to make eating, drinking, cooking and shopping easy and fun!

Here are a few of my favorite iPhone apps that I use regularly for food related … stuff:

Snooth Wine (Free)
This is my most recent addition to my iPhone, and I’ve got to say I’m impressed so far. This app takes off from the Snooth website, which makes discovering new wines incredibly easy. Like a particular aspect of a wine and want something good within a certain price range? Just search for it within your zip code and, voila, there’s a list of them! Has ratings and all.



Yelp (Free)
This app gets an average rating over on the iTunes Store, but I really quite dig it. If you’re out wondering what people think of a particular restaurant (or pretty much any store, for that matter), bring up Yelp and check out the ratings and what people had to say. Bookmark places to check out later and even leave notes and ratings right from your iPhone. What’s so bad about that?


Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List (Free)
I like apps that do more than one thing and do it well. The Epicurious app has an extensive database of recipes, along with their ratings and comments from the website’s readers. It’s easy to search for whatever you’re in the mood for making. On top of that, the app has a shopping list function where you can add a recipe’s ingredients to the list, then head off to the store and have one place to read off.

And, damn, that recipe in the image sounds pretty good!


Lose It! (Free)
I’ve already sung the praises of this app before, so of course I’m adding it to this list. The only thing I wish this app had is a way to sync it to a website so you can track and record your items there as well. Hopefully these guys will put out a premium version of the app that allows for that, because I’d be an instant customer.


CheckPlease – Tip Calculator ($0.99, Lite: Free)
Alright, so I suck at math. Lucky for me, when I’m out with people and we’re buying lunch, dinner or rounds of drinks, I’ve got the handy-dandy CheckPlease Lite app (yeah, I’m also cheap). Enter the total check amount and the percentage tip you want to leave (see, I left a 20% tip! I’m not so cheap after all), then how many people you want to split the check between. You can also round the tip or give an exact amount. Makes the whole process really painless.


Equivalence ($0.99)
Sure, there are plenty of conversion apps for the iPhone, but Equivalence takes the cake. It converts all sorts of measurements like temperature, mass, volume and currency. But where this app really kills is in how you can tilt your iPhone/iPod on its side and get an equivalence calculator. Want to know how many teaspoons you need if you add 2 cups and 3 tablespoons? This app lets you do that and more.


OpenTable (Free)
Reservations couldn’t be easier than using this app. Not only will it find nearby restaurants that have available reservation times for the one you’re looking for (and will show ones within two hours, as well), but it allows you to very quickly book the reservation within the app! It’s incredibly fast an convenient, though not all restaurants support the service (I haven’t found one yet that doesn’t). The more you use the service, the more Dining Rewards Points you get, which later add up to money off your next trip out!


Evernote (Free)
I know, I know — this isn’t really an outright food app, but I tell you that I use it for a multitude of food-related tasks, and I’ve come to rely Evernote a ton. In addition to the iPhone app, there are client applications for Windows and Mac OS X, as well as a web interface into your account. You sync your notes around through all interfaces, so anything you add or edit in once place is accessible in the others. The service is free for a whole lot of data per month, or you can subscribe to a pro account for even more.

As for what I use Evernote for in regards to food: shopping lists, recipes, beer and wine bottle pictures (the service does text recognition and I can search for anything off the label later!). I’m sure there are other things I’m thinking of.

Well, there you have it: my favorite food-related apps for the iPhone. And almost all of them are free! Got any I need to be checking out and shouldn’t be without? Let me hear ‘em!

UPDATE: A shout-out to my friend Glenn who put out the very handy Sushi Boat! iPhone app, which makes ordering sushi out a snap. Toss those annoying paper ordering sheets and go paperless when you’re out with friends.

Who doesn’t love pizza? There is a large part of me that is convinced it is the next evolutionary step for food, sort of like people who are ambidextrous. It’s nearly perfect; it’s portable, versatile, can be eaten hot or cold, and in most cases tastes really, really good. Even the nastiest, greasiest piece of junky pizza is still worth eating.

I’ve recently become obsessed with cooking homemade pizza. I don’t go to the trouble of making my own dough, not when there are readily available little balls of the stuff at my local Whole Foods Market. What has really pushed me over the edge into my recent binge of pizza making has been the purchase of my brand new pizza pan.

I know what you’re thinking: a pan?!? Yes, I realize that everyone and their mother love those pizza stones, but I’ve never had good luck with them. My pizza always sticks to the peel or something else happens and I end up with pizza landing everywhere but on that damned stone. Also, since my roommate moved out and took her grill with her, grilled crust is out of the question. As much as I love crust done on the grill, with the charred outside and slightly chewy inside, my grill pan just isn’t big enough.

I was left with no choice but to use a pan. For a while I had a standard round pan that did an okay job, but the crust never came out crispy. The edges of my crust would puff up and the middle would sink under the weight of the cheese, sauce, and toppings. I finally decided that I had had enough of this nonsense and turned to the same place that I turn to with all my problems… Amazon.

Searching around a little bit, I found a nice nonstick pizza pan with holes all along the bottom. Thinking it was the solution to all my problems I bought it (and actually sprang for two day shipping because I was so eager to try it). Lo and behold, it kicks some serious ass. Now my pizza comes out perfect, with a crispy bottom to match the puffy outside crusts. The only problem with the new pan is that you can’t really roll the dough out on it, as it just smushes through the holes. Luckily, I still have that first pan to roll the dough on, then I just move it to the new one. It works like a charm.

If you’re sick and tired of fighting with pizza stones or getting soggy middles in your pies, I highly recommend checking out this pan.

I know, I know — you’re reading CliqueClack Food to read about eating food, not avoiding it. If you’ve got no interest in losing weight or dieting, you can move along. However, I’m here to tell you that, at least in my case, I’ve found that losing weight isn’t all that tough and you can still eat what you want … just less of it.

At my age and height, most online calculators told me that, at 225 pounds, I was “obese.” I knew I was overweight, but I didn’t think I was in obese territory yet. In fact, the lowest weight I can recall being in the past 15 years or so was 205, and even that was considered to be overweight by these online calculators. How much should I weigh, according to these sites? About 185. The last time I can recall weighing 185 was in Jr. High School!

These calculators are insane when they’re not taking other factors into account. So, I decided that I had a goal weight in mind that I was happy with: 205. It’s a weight I can recall feeling relatively fit and feeling good. I was riding a bicycle about ten miles every weekday and routinely lifting weights, so that felt like a good place to be.

Rather than hop on some trendy diet or try to fit in bicycling again, I decided I’d combine simple calorie counting with regular treadmill exercises. The treadmill allowed me to work and walk, since I simply placed a board across the handles and put my laptop there. Now there would be no excuses for not getting off my ass, as the company wireless network reaches the gym and there’s barely anyone ever using the treadmill. It was like an office away from my office.

To do calorie counting, I found the free iPhone/iPod Touch application called Lose It! (emphasis theirs). Right away I was impressed by how extensive the database was on this app, making regular entry a snap. For anything not in the database, I could easily add my own items by either looking online or simply reading package labels. The tedious part came when I had to enter a recipe, but once it’s entered, you can just refer back to that recipe again later very easily.

For people who tend to not eat very many different things throughout the week, the app keeps track of what you’ve already used in the past and keeps a “My Foods” list for quick retrieval. You can also very quickly add a previous meal to what you’re eating on a given day. So, if you’re having another bowl of cereal, milk, eggs and juice, just pick the day you had that same breakfast and add it to the current day and you’re done.

There were times, though, where I was at a party and simply didn’t have time to keep track of everything I was picking from all day. For this I added a custom “food” simply called “100 Calories” and guestimated what everything added up to. Guessing gets a lot easier when you’ve been using the app for a month. I found that I’d usually add a bit more calories to my guesses, just in case I was really wrong on something.

I’m a gamer at heart, and I sort of found using the Lose It! app like playing a game. If I could anticipate my future moves, I’d know what I needed to do earlier to “win” at losing weight. Going to have a beer with dinner? Shit, I’d better get on the treadmill now for an hour to make up for it.

The results, after three months of using Lose It!: I’m hovering around 194-195 pounds. There’s a very noticeable difference in my appearance, and I’ve had to get all new pants and belts to fit me. I haven’t been this weight in probably 20 years, and I feel fantastic. I still don’t feel the need to go down to the “recommended” 185 pounds — in fact, I think that might be downright unhealthy for me.

Some tricks I’ve found to get the most out of using Lose It!:

– As I said above, to keep yourself sane in times of a busy party or whatnot, create a “100 Calories” custom food and simply use that when there’s a convenient time to add it. You can use fractions of that 100 calories or simply specify more “servings” of it if you’ve taken in 200 calories, etc. I didn’t use it often, but it helped on a few occasions.

– Make sure you stick to the calories you’re allotted and don’t think eating far less is a good thing. The app purposely adjusts for your current weight and will gradually bring your allotted calories down as you lose weight. If you drop your calorie count too quickly or too soon, your body will start to store fat to make up for what you’re not eating.

– Try to anticipate what your dinner will be before you eat lunch or even breakfast. This way you can indulge a little or have that one extra slice of pizza at lunch or a beer after work with friends when you know you’re having a salad for dinner. It would totally suck that you passed on eating a cookie after lunch because you thought you’d be eating a pasta dinner, yet it turned out you were having something far less caloric. Knowing ahead of time that you’ll have wine or dessert later that night also helps you know how much exercise you should try to do that day to make up for it.

– I love pasta, but anytime that appeared on the menu, I knew I’d likely be going a little over that day. Try to limit your pasta intake.

– The app already takes into account an average person’s daily movement for what calories you lose there, but make sure you add in any other exercise you do throughout the day, including yardwork and vacuuming! Yes, those are “exercises” included in the database that will subtract calories from your daily intake.

– Start with a low per-week weight loss plan. The app asks you your goal weight and how much you want to try to lose per week, which it will use to tell you the date when you should reach your goal. I tried a goal of losing 20 pounds, two pounds per week, and that was too difficult at first. I dropped down to one pound per week and that was much more reasonable for me. Eventually I got so used to it that I was able to jump to 1.5 pounds per week, then two. Your mileage may vary, but don’t give up if you can’t handle a faster pace.

– Take your weight measurements at the same time every day, without clothes on and preferably in the morning. Oh, and preferably at home, unless you like stripping down in public. If that’s the case, then good for you … I guess.

– Need something that does the same thing, is free and is on the web? The best I’ve found is About.com’s Calorie Count. It’s also a great place to search for calorie information on foods that Lose It! doesn’t have in its database.

– Keep at it! Don’t forget to record everything you eat and learn what healthy snacks fill you up without adding too many calories. Calorie counting is all about being aware of what you’re eating. After three months of using the app, I’ve gotten so used to knowing what things have a high calorie count that I don’t need to use the app anymore.

If you decide to give the Lose It! app a try, let me know how it works out!

I love bacon. So do you. Yes, you do. Yeah, even you Kona, though they call that “faken.” Alright, now I just lost my appetite. But not for bacon.

One of the problems with at least traditional bacon is the big mess it makes. It’s messy taking it out of the package. It’s messy cooking it. It’s messy cleaning up from it. Hell, it’s messy eating the stuff. Some people microwave it, covered in paper towels. Others will fry it up in a pan with the stove exhaust on full blast. Why is it that we love bacon again? Oh yeah, it tastes freakin’ awesome.

Here’s a gadget I happened upon on YouTube some time ago that is both brilliant and downright gross. The WowBacon Microwave Cooker is basically a microwave-safe drink pitcher with hangers for your slabs of bacon. Since they’re not laying in their own grease, there’s less mess and less fat on the meat. When the bacon’s cooked, you apparently pour the fat out into a jar for safe keeping. There goes that loss of appetite again.

Personally, I enjoy bacon more when it’s pan or griddle fried. Something about it just tastes better. Maybe it’s because the flavor is in that precious grease I’d be eliminating by using the “scientifically enclosed” WowBacon.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwgA5wOu7S0

Kona has pointed out numerous times that the Zombie Apocalypse is coming. So that got me thinking about how to cook a good meal while the Zombies are terrorizing the neighborhood. For what ever reason the zombies always take out the power. I guess they figure people faced with the choices of eating a cold can of beans and weenies or getting eaten by Zombies would rather have the Zombies get them. I prefer to eat my beans and weenies hot. A Coleman propane stove will solve that problem and can handle all of your cooking needs when the power is out for any reason.

Coleman PerfectFlow™ InstaStart™ 2-Burner Stove

The Coleman Perfectflow propane stove is an ideal stove for camping, or emergency cooking. This is a 2 burner stove that can produce 22,000 btu’s of cooking power.

The burners can be adjusted individually from low to high.

The InstStart system is a fast dependable matchless lighting system.

The Perfect flow system regulates the flow of fuel from the propane bottle for an even heat temp throughout the cooking.

The Windshields on the sides keep the flame from the burners under the pot where they belong and make for a more even cooking temperature as well.

The Nickel Chrome stove grate is easy to remove from the stove to make clean up a snap.

The rust-resistant enamel painted case is also a stylish accessory to any camp site or kitchen.

The stove will run for about an hour with both burners on high off of one propane bottle.

I have used this stove for several years and it is a great stove. I can spend a week in camp with this stove and 4 or 5 bottle of propane will cook everything from morning coffee to porcupine stew. The size of the stove is compact enough to easily be packed in a back pack, or stored away in a cupboard until the Zombies attack.

One of my favorite meals to cook on this stove while camping is breakfast. There is nothing quite like the smell of the forest in the early morning and then add into that fresh coffee with bacon, eggs, and pancakes. I usually scramble my eggs when camping, toss in some diced onion, fresh mushrooms if they are in season, a little Velveeta cheese and some red and green bell peppers and that is a breakfast worth fighting off the bears for.

We all live in an area where a natural disaster is always possible. Whether it be a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake,  a flood, or just a severe ice storm it is a good idea to be prepared. This stove is not going to break the bank, but if your power is out for a few days having it will be priceless.

Let’s face it: tea bags suck; loose tea all the way. Since getting into loose tea more often, I’ve needed a better tea infuser. There are LOTS of different infusers to choose from, and everyone’s got a different preference or a different way of infusing tea that they feel is the perfect or only way someone should steep tea.

I’d been using a ball-and-chain style infuser for a while, but it’s a pain in the ass to use when you don’t have a good place to set the thing down when steeping time’s up. So, enter the two contenders for taking over the job, both from Norpro. First up: the mesh tea ball with cup rest handle.

As you can see from the picture, this infuser has an indent in the side of the handle that allows it to rest on the side of the cup when you’re done steeping your tea — a pretty clever design. It does keep the infuser in a spot that won’t leave a puddle of tea on a nearby table our armrest, and the ball isn’t overly large, meant just for one cup of tea.

One downside of the cup rest handle infuser is that the ball still sits in the tea while it rests on the cup! You have to drink up to half of the tea in the mug before the ball is finally out of the water, and by then it’s too late — over-steeped tea. Blech!

The other downside to this infuser is that it doesn’t fit all mugs. One mug I have has a pretty thick lip on it, and the infuser’s indent wasn’t wide enough. So, two big thumbs down for this one.

This is the Grip-EZ tea infuser, which is sitting in the aforementioned cup with the thick lip. The way you fill this infuser is by squeezing the rubber handle together, which opens the ball. Just scoop up the loose tea with one half of the ball, gently let go of the handle and you’re ready to steep.

Once you’re done, the infuser comes with a small metal cup that fits the ball nicely. The downside is that you still need a flat surface for putting the thing down, whereas with the previous infuser you could be walking around and not have to put it down. Really, though, that’s the only downside of this baby.

The clear winner here is the Grip-EZ. It’s got a perfect-sized basket, is incredibly easy to fill and still offers a way to set it aside without a mess. Got an infuser that you stand by? Let us know!

From their review of the Bubba Keg Grill to their article on the history of Kansas City Barbeque, this blog has it all. There are recipes ranging from corned beef to shrimp boil. There are reviews of cook books and even games with just about everything else relating to grilling or smoking meat that you can think of. There are tips for high altitude grilling, and even a list of BBQ Twitters you should be following.

Where BBQ Addicts really shines is in the bacon, from the article about the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival to the posts about the artery-clogging goodness of the Bacon Explosion.

The Bacon Explosion is a recipe that has drawn quite a following. There is even a fan club starting for this culinary masterpiece. There are recipes for different cooking methods as well. The Bacon explosion is nothing but bacon and sausage.  Add in some of your favorite BBQ rub and a jar of your favorite BBQ sauce and your heart will hate you right up to the point it explodes out of your chest.

When I make this I will make it with Elk sausage. It tastes as good as, or better than, the Italian sausage the original recipe calls for but it has less fat so it is much healthier for you. Generously coat the sausage and bacon with Plowboys Bovine Bold rub and a bottle of Bullseye Original BBQ sauce and this will be a culinary masterpiece. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I am drooling more than Bo right now.  I have not yet tried the Bacon explosion, but now that spring is here and we have good grilling weather I will soon. “Honey? When are you going to visit your Mother again?”

As I was preparing to write this week’s Maki Clack, I realized that I’ve done you wrong, and for that, I apologize. How, oh how, could I have harassed you into embracing maki, making it at home, the easy way, with delightful and daring combinations, and not ever discussed how to serve it?

My bad.

If you put sushi, maki or any of the like onto a regular, round dinner plate, it’s your bad. We even have plastic square plates to serve the kid, and we have since he was about a year old and embraced the sushi way of life. So if my four-year-old knows you need a special plate for sushi, then you ought to know too. Again, sorry for the oversight.

So today, I offer you five choices of sushi dinnerware: the traditional, the green, the cheap, the romantic and the disposable.

All the traditional sushi restaurants serve their sushi on bamboo plates. OK, maybe not all of them. Rectangular ceramic plates are the new avant garde choice, and somewhat tacky places will give you your enormous order in a boat. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you obviously haven’t ordered enough sushi. Eat more!

Amazon offers a traditional bamboo sushi plate for $29.99, which could get pricey if you used one for each diner, but consider using it instead for your serving platter. Or, you could always get the Totally Bamboo Sushi Plate, Small for $12.99 each, one for each diner.

Yes, I suppose you could argue that bamboo plates are a green choice, since bamboo is such a quickly renewable resource. How about some sushi plates that don’t use any new resources? This hammered sushi plate ($12.99 each) is made from recycled glass and is simply gorgeous. They even offer a matching tray.

What? You want something cheap? This neutral-colored ceramic sushi plate is only 6.19, or you can order 10 plates at a discounted rate.

To a couple like Keith and I, sushi says romance (although Scott’s experience watching the awkward couple on a sushi first date says otherwise). More specificallly, it says, “Put Owen to bed and eat dinner on the family room floor in front of the fireplace on your gorgeous sushi-for-two dinnerware set.” My pick, which totally rebels against any color scheme found in our house, yet calls to me anyway, is this brilliant blue sushi set, rustic and striking.

Now, for the lazy sushi dinnnerware. You can’t be bothered to hand wash some of the artsy stuff I’ve highlighted above, and I know you wouldn’t dream of putting hand-glazed ceramics in your dishwasher. You’ll love these square disposable plates — they come in white or black — that are stylish, yet completely tossable.

There! I’ve corrected my bad and made it a good. You’ll now be serving your delicious homemade (or takeout) sushi in style. You’re welcome.

I was watching an episode of Barefoot Contessa the other day, marveling at the venerable Ina Garten, and something suddenly occurred to me — she is Superman.  Not in the sense that she’s going to leap a tall building, let alone a tall step with a single bound, and she’s more likely to stop a beignet than a bullet these days, but aside from that, all signs point to her being the Caped Crusader of the Culinary World.   Sure, this may be a conspiracy theory to toss into the garbage bin, but allow me to defend my position with evidence.

First of all there is her super suit, because what is Superman without his tights and cape? Ina’s go-to consists of her button down dress shirts and khaki capris, a staple that’s almost as signature as the insane amounts of butter, cream, and chocolate she uses in almost every recipe.  (How bad can that be?) I can just imagine walking into her beautifully appointed Hampton home and finding a closet filled with a sea of the same exact St. John button down shirt and J.Crew khaki pants.

Then there’s Jefferey Garten, her loving husband and former Dean of the Yale School of Management, or someone you may know as … Louis Lane.   Think about it: he’s always in the city, and is only around when he is in DANGER … of being famished.  Damsel in distress — CHECK.

Finally, and most obvious of Barefoot Contessa’s similarities to Superman, is the way she melts and turns utterly useless around her Kryptonite.  Of course I speak of her unequivocal weakness and vulnerability for ruggedly handsome gay men with a superb sense of style.  It never fails that when Jefferey is away, the mice will play, and when I say play I mean starting the coals for the BBQ, and/or decorating each place setting with the most delicate of seasonal flowers.  It’s exactly how Superman would act if he were a teenage girl meeting the Jonas Brothers. (Note to self: ‘Next time compare Ina Garten to a teenage girl meeting the Jonas Brothers.’)

Of course I cannot deny how personable Ina is and just how gosh darn bubbly her alter ego, the Barefoot Contessa can be as well, I just can’t keep this secret any longer.  I know in my heart of hearts that Ina Garten is the Superman of the Culinary World and if anyone has seen Ina and the Culinary Superman in the same room at the same time, then by all means get back to me. (I’ll be in my Superman PJ’s … the ones with the feet built in.)

I have fond memories of my mom’s old shaker-top pressure cooker. She would use it to cook fresh corn from the farm stand or from our backyard garden, when the rhythm of the pressure regulator shushing and rocking along would presage the sweet, steamy aroma of corn blossoming through the kitchen.

I bought mine moons later, when I was going through a quasi-vegetarian stage in law school. I was cooking all manner of dried beans for protein, and I didn’t really have time for it, so I invested in a “second generation” pressure cooker that would cook by beans in 1/3 to 1/2 the time. Lorna Sass‘s fantastic vegetarian cookbook showed me the way, with easy, tasty recipes for lentil soup and pasta y fagioli that were ready in a snap.  Genius!

A pressure cooker cooks food faster because water boils at a higher temperature under pressure. That sounds familiar from high school physics, doesn’t it? It might sound a little scary to be creating so much pent-up pressure in your kitchen, but don’t fret! Pressure cookers have vents that will let excess pressure escape before it becomes dangerous. (But when cooking foods like beans, be careful to use a “second generation” pressure cooker instead of my mom’s old shaker-top. An errant bean skin can cover the vent in old school cookers, which can be a recipe for disaster! Always follow the directions that accompany your pressure cooker.)

I’ve hauled my pressure cooker out of storage recently — they’re great for cooking soups, veggies, and yes, beans. My sister has been talking big about her pressure cooker version of potato leek soup, which I may wring out of her yet. Stay tuned!

Well, OK, laugh, but only for a moment. All done? Alright, let me explain.

I’ve had the tea kettle for a couple of months, and while pouring some hot water into a cup a few days ago, I got the distinct smell of burning plastic in the air. So I examined the tea kettle inside and out. No melted plastic, no pieces coming off of the spout or handle. Then I noticed that the little lid that opens at the spout is made of hard plastic and not all metal. So I decided to see if that was the plastic I smelled burning. Sure enough, it was coming from that piece of plastic.

Of course, I should have waited a couple of minutes to smell the plastic because I got a nice shot of steam right onto my nose. It stung for a while but the pain went away that night and there wasn’t even any discoloration on the skin, so I won’t look like W.C. Fields the rest of my life. And now I have a story to tell my grandkids, only I’ll change the “burnt my nose on the tea kettle” part of the story to “crazed biker threw hot water in my face in a fight.”

Anyway, I’m wondering if I should get rid of this thing. I love the kettle (it’s the OXO Uplift, designed so you can lift it, pour the tea, and then close it again using only one hand — clever, actually), but now I have this probably lame worry that I’m getting infected by melted plastic. I’ve used it a dozen times since then and I haven’t gotten that smell again (though I’m sure I could smell it again if I put my nose close the plastic, though that’s not going to happen again). Is it possible for plastic to smell that way just because boiling water hit it and it’s not melting or anything it just smells for a few minutes?

This was one of those tea-related accidents you keep hearing about but never think will happen to you.

Well, I’ve got some awesome news for you! No longer will you have to worry about non-portable root beer floats when you’ve got The Fizz. Simply cram The Fizz with ice cream, screw the top to your favorite bottle of root beer, and you’re set to go. Squeeze the bottle to fill the cup with yummy root beer floaty calorieness and drink away. No need for thick glass mugs or silly spoons — just toss it back.

What’s more, The Fizz and the bottle will fit right into your bike’s bottle cage or the convenient bottle rest at the treadmill. Take it to your next basketball pick-up game — the guys will be green with envy. Hand them out to marathon runners. Take one for your morning commute to work! Don’t be left without your root beer floats again.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO1EPgjX-qc

Just about anyone who drinks wine at home has bought or received one of these things as a gift. You know what I’m talking about — those contraptions that are so ridiculously large that you can’t fit them in a silverware drawer, never mind your back pocket. They look more natural sitting on the counter in a gynecologist’s examination room than your kitchen. Are wine bottles so incredibly difficult to open that we’ve resorted to needing one of these to open them? Then it’s no wonder why we’re seeing more screw-tops!

I’ve had a lever-style corkscrew for years, and about a year ago I switched back to my trusty, classic “waiter’s friend”-style (or wine knife) corkscrew. Let me tell you why these are superior to those metallic rabbits you have sitting on your countertop:

They’re compact. If you’re hosting a party, you never know when or where someone’s going to need a new bottle opened. The wine knife fits right in your back pocket, and you can impress partygoers with your de-corking skills as you whip it out like a ninja donning a butterfly knife. You’d need a backpack to carry around a lever-style opener.

They work even when they’re dull. You ever notice that the lever-style openers come with an extra corkscrew piece? That’s because the thin pieces tend to get dull over time, causing you to have to replace it. If you don’t replace it, you risk damaging the entire opener if you try to force it into a stubborn cork; it happened to someone I know. With a wine knife, the wire is hefty and sharp. If it gets dull, just push harder. Wimp.

It has a built-in knife. With a lever-style contraption, it comes with a foil cutter that’s good for nothing other than — you guessed it — cutting the foil around a cork. A wine knife is multi-purpose: cut cork foil, dig out dried-out cork from a bottle mishap, fend off evil henchmen out to steal the world’s wine supply, and dice carrots.

And while I’m on the subject of bottle foil, if you can turn it on the bottle, why are you messing with cutting it? Just pull it off like a sock.

It’s fast. Let’s go over the steps for opening a bottle of wine with a lever-style opener: Wrestle with the flimsy plastic holder to get the damn thing out; carefully grip the handles around the bottle top (grabbing too hard can shatter the bottle); flip the lever up and be careful not to let go of the levers or make the bottle slip off the counter; pull the lever back; do that fancy thing you can never remember how to do to get the cork off the screw.

Steps for using a wine knife: Pull from back pocket; screw into cork; pull cork out.

If you’ve succumbed to the lever-style opener, try switching back to a waiter’s friend sometime. At least you’ll gain some counter space back if you switch for good. Plus you can help us take out more wino henchmen.

About a month ago I decided to try switching from coffee to tea. There are great benefits from drinking tea, especially green and white teas. With coffee, not so much. Some people say they don’t want to give up drinking coffee because it helps keep them regular. That’s just an excuse to keep drinking it. I switched to tea and I’m still fine! Confucius says: “He who says he drinks coffee to stay regular is full of shit.” Actually I made that up, but it’s still just as wise.

One reason I hesitated to drink tea for so long was because I found it to be too bitter. Then I was given the best advice for drinking tea in the history of mankind: do not oversteep. I can’t praise that advice enough. In the past, I’d just keep the teabag or steeping ball in the cup the entire time I drank it. Five minutes of steeping some teas is equivalent to pouring viscous coffee sludge from the bottom of a coffee pot into your cup; it tastes awful!

I found the odd gadget pictured to the right that’s a … unique way of timing how long your tea has steeped. I mean, it looks cool and all, but this is the 21st century, folks. Sand timers are for olde Englishmen who sit by a roaring fire with their mates after a fox hunt, wearing a monacle and saying “pip pip” and “huruph!” That and children’s board games.

If you’re going to time your tea steeping — or anything for that matter — are you really going to sit there looking for when the last grain is going to fall? That’s right up there with watching paint dry and waiting for Seacrest to tell you who’s eliminated from American Idol. You’d be better off counting to 180-Mississippi for that three-minute steeping (300, tops).

So remember: Do not oversteep your tea and use something practical to tell you when to stop steeping — I use Cuppa at work. The difference between three and four minutes does matter when steeping tea! You’ll be a coffee convert too. No shit.